In sunroof apparatuses formed with an opening on the roof of a vehicle, a fixed panel or a movable panel including a transparent glass plate is provided at the opening on the roof. In order to adjust the amount of the sunlight taken through the panel into a vehicle compartment, a known sunshade panel apparatus disclosed in, for example, JP2003-48433A is employed.
With the construction of the sunshade panel apparatus described in JP2003-48433A (i.e., paragraphs [0029], [0031], FIGS. 1 and 4), in a state where the sunshade panel is closed, plural panels, for example two panels, are arranged adjacent to each other within a plane in an extended state, whereas in a state where the sunshade panel is opened, the plurality of panels are arranged to be overlapped parallel to each other.
In order to achieve the arrangement structure as described above, the sunshade panel apparatus described in JP2003-48433A is structured as follows. A connection pin engaging with a tilting start portion of a bent guide trail provided at a first sunshade panel is provided at a second sunshade panel. Movement of the sunshade panel is transmitted to the second sunshade panel via the connection pin and the tilting start portion so that two panels synchronously move along a guide way extending along a straight line. When the second sunshade panel is moved to a predetermined opened position, a guide cam provided at the second sunshade panel is moved into a cross guide way portion utilizing a component of a force applying on the tilting start portion. Then, the second sunshade panel is lifted up and the first sunshade panel is slid under the second sunshade panel so that the sunshade panel overlaps the first sunshade panel, as a result, the first and the second sunshade panels are opened.
According to the construction of the known sunshade panel apparatus described in JP2003-48433A, when the sunshade panel is moved to be in the predetermined position, because of the component of the force applying to the tilting start portion, the guide cam provided at the second sunshade panel can smoothly move into the cross guide way portion. However, the component of the force continuously acts upon the tilting start portion even during when two panels are being slid in an adjacently aligned state within one and the same plane. Accordingly, two panels are respectively pressed strongly against the opposite surfaces of the guide way by the slant component of the force. Thus, the resistance when sliding the sunshade panels becomes large, which brings a drawback that the drive force is required to be increased for sliding the sunshade panels.
A need thus exists for a sunshade panel apparatus, which is capable of stably sliding sunshade panels with a small drive force.